


Miss Iris West and the superhero formally known as Flash

by gnimaerd



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2606972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimaerd/pseuds/gnimaerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If this were a movie, right about now she'd turn round and look up into his eyes, push the mask back off his no doubt blindingly handsome face and kiss him. And there would be mood lighting and swelling background music.</i> A series of encounters between Iris and the mysterious Flash, who for some reason??? is flirting with her??? Set post 1x05.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miss Iris West and the superhero formally known as Flash

 

 

Iris makes the first move.

 

Well. It's not a move. She reaches back.

 

She's standing on the roof at Jitters, looking out over the city, her hands planted on the balcony wall. He's stood behind her – she can feel him, inching closer, listening to her, because this is an odd angle to talk to someone from and also that mask – thing – covers his ears so probably he actually can't hear too well under the best of circumstances. (Isn't that dangerous? She should ask him if it's dangerous.)

 

She stands and talks to him with her back to him, to respect his privacy. It doesn't take a genius to work out that he doesn't want to show his face – even when he's making his face do that weird, fuzzy blurry thing, he only ever stands in places where he's shadowed, he keeps his chin dipped low. She can see him avoiding getting too close to her, unless she stands like this, without looking directly at him, stays still and keeps her movements slow. It reminds her of the stray cat Barry once brought home, how it had gotten behind the washer and not come out and they'd had to sit very still, very quiet, with their backs to it, until it had acclimatised to their presence enough to move closer.

 

And whilst she's talking, whilst he's inching up to her shoulder, she reaches back.

 

Her fingers brush something that isn't leather, like she thought it would be – it's a little tougher, more plastic-y feeling – and she feels him flinch away from her immediately, and she feels like an idiot. Because what is she even doing?

 

Except that then he moves closer again, to where her hand is still lingering, extended just a little further back than her waist. And Iris stays still, still, like she did with the cat, and he lets her fingertips come to rest on the outer edge of one of his gloves – on his wrist, she realises – her fingertips are resting on his wrist. If she closes her hand, she'll be holding his.

 

She swallows, dryly, her heart rate suddenly picking up, because this is dumb, this is so dumb but also there's a tiny fangirl-y part of her that is beyond excited right now – _she's touching him._ And he's letting her touch him.

 

And then, of course, he's gone.

 

***  
  
A gift turns up for her, at work, the following week – after she puts up another blog post. It's chocolate, a tiny little square box, bright, handmade, with just four truffles inside – insanely expensive looking. The label is in French. The truffles are – oh, so damn good. The note on the top just has her name, nothing else.

 

She'd suspect Eddie, except that she knows it wasn't Eddie.

 

She spends her entire shift surreptitiously using her phone to google the French on the label, and by the time she finishes work she's pretty convinced that these truffles really genuinely came from France – recently. The label belongs to a brand that's only made in Paris, in one chocolate shop there, and they don't export to anywhere outside of Europe. 

 

What the actual flying fuck – and also  _how_ and  _why_ but also wow, good chocolate. She savours them, and when she's finished, she keeps the box – props it on her bedside, starts keeping her rings in it.

 

One time she catches Barry staring at the box, but she won't make that connection for a little while longer.

 

***  
  
The gifts keep turning up – sparodically, but they do. Usually after she publishes something particularly complimentary to her blog; they're mostly food, mostly from all manner of far flung parts of the world.

 

_Show off_ , she thinks, fondly, when a pineapple turns up with a little label stuck to it to point to its origin having been Thailand – and it turns out that fresh pineapple from Thailand makes pineapple imported here taste like cardboard. She's sucking her sticky fingers for the rest of the day, rations out the sharp, sweet fruit until its skin is turning brown in her refrigerator.

 

“Are you genuinely running round the world now?” She asks him, the next time she sees him, and she thinks she sees him smile, under the blur of his face.

 

“I can't tell you that!”

 

“I could have that pineapple analysed, you know, find out exactly where it came from.”

 

“You'd have to stop eating it, then.”

 

“Maybe you're not running everywhere – maybe you're just rich. Maybe you own an import/export business.”

 

He snorts – she actually hears him snort. “I'm not Oliver Queen!” And then, a moment later, “whose name I mention because he's – rich – not for – any other – related reason – ”

 

“Why do you only ever bring me things that are bio-degradable? It'd be nicer to have more of a keepsake, don't you think? I'm the closest thing you've got to an official biographer, you know that right?”

 

A necklace with a tiny silver lightening bolt is left in her coffee mug in the break room the following day. She wears it everyday for a month – and not just because of the way it makes her dad's eyebrows knit together when he sees it, or because for some reason a single glance at it makes Barry flush and scurry from the room.

 

***  
  
He rescues her from a burning building.

 

It's not quite that simple, of course, but that's the most vital information here – building, on fire, her inside – and then she's not. She's outside, and she feels his grip more at its abrupt absence when she's suddenly set down safely on the roof of a building a block away, than from the split second when he was holding her, cradling her to his chest. Just for a moment, though, she could swear she felt his breath, saw his eyelashes. 

 

She's shaking, more frightened than she's willing to let herself believe, her eyes still stinging from the smoke, gasping for air – he's gone – and then he's back, and a bottle of water is being pushed into her hands – and then he's gone again. If she looks over the edge of the roof, she can see him zipping three more people out of the building – four – five – 

 

She drinks, deeply, clears the clag in her throat, wipes her eyes – and then like a good journalist she gets out her phone and takes notes. It gives her something to focus on.

 

Then he's back.

 

“What the hell were you doing in there?” Even through the odd, artificial jangle in his voice she can hear his anger, and beneath that the real note of fear she knows from late night lectures from her dad.

 

“I'm a reporter!”

 

“You're a blogger!”

 

“Same difference!” She has awful, humiliating tears in her eyes, and she has no idea why – just she's still frightened, and she's suddenly aware that she doesn't know this man, not really. That there's a stranger under that familiar mask and she's alone with him, in the dark, very recently out of a situation where she almost died (and oh god she's going to have to find an explanation for her dad re: the state of her clothes and the smell).

 

She wants Barry, all of a sudden – a powerful, homesick kind of wanting that only makes the tears worse. They haven't spoken in two weeks. It's been awful. And Barry would make her feel safe, would make everything feel normal again – except that nothing, not even him, has been normal since that stupid storm and the lightening strike.

 

So she turns her back and paces away from the masked super-human vigilante, to the edge of the roof, places her hands on the guard rail and heaves in a deep breath, feeling her lungs creak and itch, trying to find normal, somewhere deep within herself – somewhere steady and constant, so she can  _stop with the damn crying this is embarassing, god!_

 

Then there's a tentative hand on her back. 

 

“I'm sorry,” he sounds genuinely sheepish. 

 

She doesn't look round. 

 

“Do you – ” the hand pats her, gently. “Would you like a hug?”

 

There's an actual real life superhero offering to hug her. Iris swallows a bubble of hysterical laughter, tries to lift her hands off the guard rail without them shaking. She chances a look at him – not quite at his face – turning just enough to see that the lightening bolt on his chest is grimy with soot – and he wraps his arms around her from behind and holds onto her for a moment. 

 

The strange, plastic-y suit is padded, his body warm and steady beneath it. She feels safe. His grip is gentle. She's still looking out at the city, and his breath is warm against her ear, and by increments she lets herself lean back into his arms, her back flush against his chest. If she turns her head her temple will meet his mouth.

 

Their hands meet for just a moment, at her waist, where he's holding her.

 

If this were a movie, right about now she'd turn round and look up into his eyes, push the mask back off his no doubt blindingly handsome face and kiss him. And there would be mood lighting and swelling background music (and she wouldn't have a very nice boyfriend back home, and she also wouldn't have felt quite so certain she was going to die quite so recently). 

 

But he just holds onto her until she's stopped shaking, and then he lets go and steps back and when she turns round he's looking down, his face a blur. 

 

“I'm glad you're okay,” he says, sounding sincere in a way that makes her stomach twist up. His suit is spattered with soot, his cheeks are beaded with sweat – there's definitely a real guy under that mask, a real human being, no matter how super-human his abilities – a guy who's sweating from heat, tired and probably thirsty, concerned for her well-being. Does he have family somewhere worrying for him, too? 

 

She hesitates, then offers him what's left of the water in her bottle. “Do you have a family? A girlfriend? A wife?”

 

He takes the bottle, drinks, slowly – and then, barely perceptibly, he shakes his head. Is that him answering her question? “No girlfriend. No wife.”

 

Oh. Okay then. She should be sad for him for that – the way he says it sounds very... final. Like he doesn't have anyone, at all. But also a tiny part of her is a little relieved? That he's not the sort of guy who has a wife and is using his super-powers to bring another woman trinkets in his spare time. That he's – what, available? Jeez, what sort of train of thought is that?

 

“Please don't go into anymore burning buildings,” he says, handing her back the bottle. 

 

“No promises.”

 

He laughs.

 

***

 

That time after the fire, he takes her home – carries her. It takes all of ten seconds, with her face pressed to his neck, per his instructions to not open her eyes and to keep a firm grip on his shoulders.   


It doesn't occur to her until very early next morning, when she's lying in bed still thinking about him – his grip, his eyelashes – to wonder about how he got her back to her dad's place without needing to ask for an address.

 

***

 

At Christmas a wreath appears on her doorstep, with a red bow and a funny fat cartoon robin on the card –  _seasons greetings_ ! Inside, someone has drawn a lightening bolt under a scrawled note:

 

_Happy holidays, my fave blogger._

 

He uses words like  _fave_ – which somehow tickles her. 

 

She could do something like have the handwriting analysed – it's in a squiggly cursive she suspects has been deliberately used to throw off something like that, though. And anyway, she'd need to get dad or Barry to help her with it and what's she going to tell them?  _The Flash leaves me gifts sometimes and this one time he hugged me and it was weird but I liked it_ – 

 

As far as either of them know she's only ever directly encountered him once, and never had a full on conversation, and she'd rather keep it that way because she can hear the fight with her dad coming and just – god who has the energy. She's got a paper due.

 

***

 

“How do you do that?”

 

“What?”

 

“With your face – that. The – blurring. What is that?”

 

She sees what she thinks is a small smile. “It's connected to my speed – I can make parts of my body vibrate, so – it just works as a disguise. Extra protection.”

 

“Is that what you're doing to your voice, then? You're making your – vocal chords vibrate?”

 

“You're good, Miss West.”

 

“I should be an investigative reporter, huh?”

 

She hears him laugh that funny, rattling laugh she's fairly sure is a result of the vocal distortion. They're on the roof balcony of Jitters again, and she's drinking coffee after her shift – she's been waiting for him, because they sort of have a semi-standing date on Tuesdays after her late shift. He swings by for a few minutes, tidies up for her, dodges whatever questions she has for him this week, and – okay let's be honest, he flirts with her, and she... likes it. Even though it's weird and so, so dumb and unfair to Eddie and – yeah. All those sensible things.

 

“Vibration, huh?” She quirks her eyebrows at him. “You can make your _face_ vibrate?”

 

“And some other things.”

 

She can hear the smug grin in his voice and she laughs. “You sure you don't have a girlfriend? Cause that ability is going to waste right now, lemme tell you.”

 

The hunch of his shoulders suggests only a hint of self-consciousness, and then he's zipping from his usual perch on the roof behind her, down to the table opposite hers, effecting a sprawl in one of the chairs, legs propped up, head tipped back. “I'm waiting for the right girl, I guess.”

 

“Well that's very honourable of you.”

 

“I have my eye on one I've liked for a while but – I don't know how she feels about me yet.”

 

She's going to pretend she doesn't a) see that grin on his stupid, vibrating face or b) feel the sharp twist in her stomach, the way she's almost certain that he's looking at her.

 

“Plus my line of work doesn't exactly make dating a risk free endeavour,” he pops up out of his chair, sending it clattering across the balcony – now he's across the other side, then he's up above her again.

 

“You could just ask her out and see what she says.” She offers, to his shadowy form. “Work out the rest later.”  


“You're a sensible woman, Iris West.”

 

Then he's gone.

 

She should have found some way to say 'I have a boyfriend' – this would have been the juncture at which it would be appropriate to drop that in, right? To point out to him her total unavailability even if this weren't a stupid, ridiculous thing she's not even sure is really happening anyway. She hasn't even seen this super powered dork's face, what the hell would they do on a date? Save a few lives then go home and make out in total darkness?

 

...well okay now that she thinks about it that's not an unappealing option, just also clearly totally unrealistic – 

 

How realistic is a man who can run at the speed of sound, though? Or, for that matter, make his face vibrate? She starts thinking, just for a moment, about what that would be like – and then decides to get the hell home to Eddie before she eternally damns herself to hell.

 

***  
  
He's bleeding – she catches sight of liquid scarlet running out from under the mask and puts her hands up instinctively.

 

Her whole arm immediately takes a jolt like a static electric shock, her fingertips brushing his vibrating cheek, and she laughs, breathless because that feels so damn weird – 

 

He pushes her hand away, and she starts digging in her pockets for tissues, insists on wadding up a couple to press to the gash under his left eye.

 

“Poor baby,” she murmurs, and feels him lean into her touch, just slightly, just enough, as his face sends this strange vibrating tingle all the way through her body.

 

***

She has a really, deeply inappropriate dream about him – in fact she has the same one, three nights in a row – about them getting it on in Barry's lab, of all places. She dreams about the rough, easy readiness of his kisses, his open mouth, his eyelashes – she dreams about the feel of that damn suit under her fingertips – she dreams about all the potential of that vibrating body.

 

But in the dream when she goes to pull his mask off it won't give way, and he steps back from her, shaking his head. She wakes up with the confused, hurt feeling still heavy in her stomach.

 

She still misses Barry. Maybe that's what the dreams are about, really. 

 

***

 

Iris sees the Flash run into a building and sees the building explode and for approximately thirty seconds she's a horrified, panic-stricken mess as she tries to see through the dust cloud – catch any sign of the familiar streak – a spot of red light – anything – 

 

And then he's snatching her off the ground and they're down an alley two miles away before she's had time to register her relief.

 

“I thought you were – ”

 

“Could you please do me a favour and stop hanging round exploding buildings? It's a rule now, okay – we should make a list. No burning buildings, no explosions – ”

 

She throws her arms around his neck and kisses his big dumb face, which momentarily makes her nose go numb. “ _I thought you were dead_ .”

 

He hesitates a moment, and then he's hugging her back, gently. 

 

When she turns her face just enough to lay her ear against his chest, she can hear his heart hammering against his ribs, and she could swear it sounds familiar.

 

 

 


End file.
